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Fire Records
Fire Records released a series of six split 2-track singles, between 2007 and 2009, featuring Various Production remixes alongside the original tracks they were based on. All the remixed artists released other music with Fire Records. Various' third album, The Invisible Lodger (2009) was also released by Fire Records. VP & Gerry Mitchell - Feasting On My Heart (2007) #'Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta '- Feasting On My Heart #'Gerry Mitchell '- Feasting On My Heart (Various Production Remix) Before working with Various on their album, The Invisible Lodger, Gerry Mitchell was already putting music to his poetry with Little Sparta, worked with Little Sparta to release two albums - Scalpel Slice and The Rugged Garden . He later collaborated with Debbie Leggo too. Various Production's remix of this track is closer to their previous work than their later collaborative album with Gerry Mitchell. With it's thumping, slow electronic bassline, the remix is closer to the Fathom remix of Placebo's Twenty Years ─ falling neatly into the category of "dubstep" ─ than the final album tracks, which feature varied organic instrumentation and defy generic categorisation. Released 2 years before their LP with Gerry Mitchell, remixing this track may have been the first step towards making a full album with him. While Various' remix is an excellent track in itself, they may have been inspired by this work to produce something they felt could better accompany Gerry Mitchell's poetry ─ and test the limits of their range and abilities, as their final work is unlike anything else Various Production has produced. BLAZE45153 Cover.jpg|Cover VP & Dave Cloud - Puff Rider (2008) #'Dave Cloud '- Puff Rider (Various Production Remix) #'Dave Cloud '- Puff Rider Review from Juno.co.uk : : The Fire Records/Various Production partnership in dark mash-up continues on from VP's dark-as-a-haunted-cave remix of Gerry Mitchell and Little Sparta's 'Feasting On My Heart', and their remix of labelmates, Puerto Muerto's 'Boy' ("shocking in its scope"- Boomkat). : This time around is more upbeat (relatively speaking), as evident in Bonesy's more playfully disturbing cover. Sonically, it's nasty rather than dark; it's a stormer of electro-popping stomp warped by Dave Cloud's characteristic breathy and gravelly vocals and attitude. : The lo-fi original on the b-side (from last year's 'Napoleon Of Temperance') is a distorted disco classic karaoked by a loose-screw genius, and is a favourite of Stool Pigeon DJs. BLAZE45156 Cover - Large.jpg|Front BLAZE45156 Cover - Back.jpg|Back VP & Georgia's Horse ‎- As It Stops Raining (2009) #'Georgia's Horse '- As It Stops Raining (Various Production Remix) #'Georgia's Horse '- As It Stops Raining Some music services list the tracks incorrectly, showing the second song as the remix. Georgia's Horse have released their original version elsewhere though (on The Mammoth Sessions album), confirming that the second track is actually the original version. Description from Beep.com : : A haunting sonnet from Teresa Maldonado of Georgia's Horse gets the heavy 'auto-tune'/vocoder treatment from geurrilla dubstep crew, Various Production. BLAZE45166 Cover.jpg|Cover VP & Pumajaw - Buds (2009) #'Pumajaw '- Buds (Various Production Remix) #'Pumajaw '- Buds Various Production have also remixed Pumajaw for the track Haven, which they released for free (and exclusively) via their mailing list. Description via Picadilly Records : : Part of the Various Production remix series, comes another 7". Various Production remixing the majestic Buds from Pumajaw's latest album "Curiosity Box" described by Time Out as 'Eerie, wyrd-folk and psyche-rock with a chimeric, almost shamanistic power'. : Pinkie Maclure and John Wills (Pumajaw) combine Pinkie's unique, multi-octave voice with looped guitar, mandolin, samples, concertina and hypnotic rhythms. Their own seductive sound stretches from psychedelic pop through sultry folk songs to eerie, cacophonous, trance-inducing laments. Live, they can create a surprisingly big racket for two people and have a reputation for taking the music into sonically adventurous realms of animalistic, ritualistic intensity. BLAZE45167 - Cover.jpg|Front BLAZE45167 - Cover Back.jpg|Back BLAZE45167 - Original Artwork.jpg|Original artwork VP & The Silt ‎- How Can You Stand (2009) #'The Silt '- How Can You Stand #'The Silt '- Come Back To The Willow Various Production' remix was given a new name (like Pintman ''being a remix of MIA's ''Bird Flu), and is a remix of the second track. The sleeve art makes this clear: "How Can You Stands is adapted from Come Back to the Willow". Description from Picadilly Records : : Another installment in the Fire Records remix treatments by Various Production. This 7" sees the duo remix The Silt's wonderous beauty that is "How Can You Stand". The B-side contains the original version of The Silt's folk-soul gem "Come Back to the Willow" from their debut record for Fire. vs The Silt - How Can You Stand.jpg|Cover cover-back.jpg|Back cover VP & Virgin Passages ‎- I Want You To Sleep (2009) #'Virgin Passages' - I Want You To Sleep (Various Production Remix) #'Virgin Passages' - I Want You To Sleep Description from Beep.com : Prolific double team Various Production return with this, their latest seven inch transmission on Fire records. This time out they have re-imagined Staffordshire pysch-folk outfit Virgin Passges and their single 'I Want You To Sleep'. On the A they add a rolling steppa groove to the filtered out vocal passages of the original, while the flip sees Various draw out the acapella into a dream-n-drone pop fantasia. Stunning. The Invisible Lodger (2009) This album was made with Scottish poet Gerry Mitchell, who Various Production had previously remixed (see above). Tracklist #This Invisible Blood #Semi-Important Parasites #The Pure Sun #Coffin Fogbound #English Estate #The Invisible Lodger Pt 1 #The Unwritten Book #A Hole In Your Memory #All Fall Down #Clerks #The Invisible Lodger Pt 2 #Robot Dialogue #Spindleworld #Idiotbox #The Wrong Idol #The Invisible Lodger Pt 3 #Laughably Urbane Notes The track This Invisible Blood was released earlier, in 2007, as part of the USB mix included with the limited version of the Diver EP. The track was named Risen at the time. The track Clerks was also released for free via the Various Production mailing list. The album was mentioned in an interview with Various Produciton around March 2009. Adam said that they were "just writing the next album", and hadn't set a release date, but that the album would be released later that year. He also described it as "very bleak", with Ian noting that "it's a collaboration with a Scottish poet". Cover Art The album has two versions of cover art. The CD uses a hand-written font, while the LP uses a computer-typed font. Both versions feature a photo of Gerry Mitchell with his face covered up, although the LP version does this with a piece of foil stuck to the cover. The digital version of this release uses the LP cover, but without the strip. Cover-vinyl-strip.jpg|Vinyl cover, with strip cover-vinyl.jpg|Vinyl cover, without strip (also digital streaming cover) cover-vinyl-back.jpg|Vinyl back cover Cover.jpg|CD cover cover-back-invisible-lodger-cd.jpg|CD back cover cover-digital.jpg|Digital cover (via Gerry Mitchell's Bandcamp) Description Via Boomkat : : You really can't second guess the next step from Various - from sugary pop edits to smacking grime beats their oeuvre is always brilliantly unpredictable. Their latest full length album aligns itself with maudlin Scottish poet Gerry Mitchell after delivering a taster of the project on with a remix of Mitchell and Little Sparta's 'Feasting On My Heart' 7" towards the end of 2007. : The collaboration allows Various to really stretch their sonic imaginations into windswept cinematic scores and surreal folk arrangements to bolster Mitchell's reassuringly dour ramblings. The crew obviously appreciate the unique and often impenetrable tone of the Scottish accent as much as we do, lending some of their finest studio ideas to compliment the morose and sinister vocal delivery. : Including 17 tracks of concise and perfectly measured darkness merging field recordings with Krauty synths, fingered banjos, accordians and doomy bass with the vitriolic bile of Gerry Mitchell, you're assured an intensely unique experience. This is a riveting listen and comes with the highest recommendations to lovers of the bleak side... Via Fire Records : : "The Invisible Lodger" is a unique collaboration with South London wordsmith Gerry Mitchell. From the folk-dubstep success of their first LP comes a shockingly new experiment of spoken word electronica. The result is somewhat like a less-rigid Massive Attack fronted by a Mark E Smith gifted at imagery and not just word-play. : Dreamy/nightmare machine-waltzes paint sonic scenes for a narrator deconstructing the city walls around him, with collective delusions disturbing his consciousness. Scattered drones, electronic-dub, found samples and waltz-folk music envelope and elaborate the internal dialogue, a modern "Notes from Underground", of a Scottish Dostoevsky. : Various Production are the mysterious duo carving out new genres with every release and remix. After surviving a bidding war (Warp, Leaf, Domino..) they released their debut folk-dubstep LP The World Is Gone on XL/Beggars ("this tops them all. 8.5/10" PITCHFORK). The album's fresh scattered beats with dark soundscapes were balanced out by forgiving female vocals. An astoundingly productive team, they have recently remixed Ian Brown, Thom Yorke, Cat Power & Dirty Three amongst others. : With elements of 1984 paranoia, the collaborators weave a massive range of sounds modern and old (middle eastern, folk bar song ("Cut me!") with Gerry's urban isolation and unflinching view of himself and his surroundings; an industrial, hypnotic, spoken-word electronica. His images are unique and from a heightened sensitivity to his powerlessness; he is invisible, out of the scheme, standing still watching the consumer legions, urban fashionistas and faux-mo sapiens of the capital chase the neon colours and recycled "creations" projected on cold metal and concrete. The album's bleakness is also a pure clean wind, equally soothing and unnerving. : Gerry's persona isnt a cheery one, and not for the faint-hearted. When delicate, like on All Fall Down (exploring the "granite list" of "the glorious war dead"), it is dream-like. Most release of his tension is in the meticulous and shimmering production by Various; a squinting sunset futurism that opens up his pensive nihilism, stretching it into waltzing and pulsing thought-scapes, "the future leaking into the present". He wanders a dirty south London restlessly, confused by pervasive automatism ("perhaps they have no need of conversation?"), and the machines, mentioned and heard often (almost breathing) on the album, controlling the environment, isolating and dehumanising. Emotionless violence bewilders him ("someone dead in the street, and no god's wrath"), and materialism and nihilism empty the soul, leaving him aching like the dog at the end of the street. : You want hope? It pops its head a few times, the nurturing, stand-out Pure Sun and the moon that saunters through my dreams, but it is never far beneath the surface that these are amoral forces. The Invisible Lodger is an original and uncompromising modern soundtrack to Mr Mitchell's talented verse and strong imagery. Category:Labels